


The Mistakes We're About to Make

by orphan_account



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fraternity, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-18 03:05:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5895694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine doesn't like to think of it as lying to himself, it's more like he's decided that the life he'd live as a gay guy wasn't the one he wanted. He leaves Dalton, starts college, and joins a fraternity. The anxiety about keeping his secret is pretty bad, but it's better than the alternative. Probably.</p><p>One day, he meets Kurt Hummel, the stepbrother of one of the guys in his frat. Blaine sees part of himself in Kurt, and maybe that's why he hates him so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated M for language, some sexual content, and lots of drinking/partying.
> 
> Content warnings for homophobia (including internalized homophobia), misogynist slurs, homophobic slurs and descriptions of anxiety and panic attacks.

It’s all Finn’s fault.

That’s what Blaine would tell himself later. If Finn hadn’t brought his awful stepbrother over to _their_ frat house, _their_ special place, this whole mess could have been avoided.

Kurt didn’t belong there.

A small voice in his head is saying, _if Kurt doesn’t belong here, then neither do you._

He tells the voice to shut up.

* * *

Blaine meets Kurt on a Saturday morning. Well, Saturday afternoon would probably be more accurate. There’s sunlight streaming into his room, and he has the urge to just bury his face in his pillows again and try to drift off back to sleep, but he knows he’s been doing that for hours. His head is pounding.

He opens his eyes, stretching his arms out to either side and yawning. He can feel something rough under his arm, and he rolls over to look at it.

It’s just a piece of scrap paper with a phone number and the name “Katie” scribbled on it, with a little heart drawn underneath. Blaine just sighs, remembering the night before. Katie had been flirting with him all night, and it had been a while – a few weeks – since he’d gotten any. It was like a compulsion at this point. He knew if he went too long without hooking up with someone, one of his frat brothers – well, probably just Puck, actually – would slip in a quick “What, are you gay?”, and just like that, everything would be broken.

So instead he gets drunk at their frat parties, waits for some desperate girl to start hitting on him, then drinks until he can convince himself it’s a good idea to sleep with her. By the time Blaine wakes up the next morning, the girls are almost always gone.

They don’t usually leave their numbers. He’s not good in bed – he knows that. He supposes they wouldn’t be either if they spent the whole time with their eyes closed, trying to pretend they were sleeping with someone else.

He feels guilty about it, too. It’s not that he doesn’t like women – he loves women – they’re kind and thoughtful and beautiful, and when he was a kid, almost all of his friends were girls. But they just didn’t _do it_ for him, and the whole only-having-girl-friends is just one other dirty secret in this horrible mess that makes him feel like he has to do that to these girls anyway.

He sighs one more time, swinging his legs off the side of the bed and rubbing his eyes. He stands up, still a little unsteady on his feet, and grabs a pair of shorts and a polo to put on. He catches himself in the mirror as he dresses, and he looks like shit. It’s no surprise considering how much he drank last night, but still. His hair is even more all over the place than usual. He used to gel it, slick it back so everything stayed in place and he looked nice and put-together, but he knew it was just another thing people would hold against him. Another piece of the puzzle they’d eventually put together.

So now he just lets his curly hair do whatever it’s going to do. He doesn’t care.

He picks up the clothes that had been quickly thrown to the ground the night before and tosses them in his hamper. As he turns to leave, his eye catches Katie’s number again.

He picks up the little scrap piece of paper, crumples it up, and tosses it in the garbage can under his desk.

* * *

Blaine comes downstairs just as the front door closes, and he sees Finn wrap his arms around someone – who it is, he can’t tell, because whoever it is is significantly shorter than Finn.

“I missed you, buddy,” Finn says, “I’m glad you finally came.”

“I missed you too,” a voice responds. “I still feel like I’m going to _catch something_ just being in here, but I know I won’t get to see you otherwise.”

Probably some high school girlfriend, Blaine thinks, but he can’t remember Finn mentioning anyone. Or maybe he had. Blaine can barely open his eyes all the way, let alone think about what Finn had said any more than five minutes ago. And why would he call a girl buddy?

Finn hears him padding down the steps and turns around. “Oh, Kurt, this is Blaine,” Finn says, and now that he’s not devouring that girl in a hug, he can see that it’s not a girl at all. Blaine’s eyes still can’t open properly, but he feels his eyebrows raise. “Blaine, this is my stepbrother, Kurt.”

“Kurt Hummel,” Kurt says brightly, smiling and sticking his hand out expectantly for a handshake. It’s way too early for this shit, and Kurt’s voice is loud and grating and way too cheerful for… for whatever the hell time it was.

Blaine descends the last few steps, roughly and unsteadily, his feet making loud noises and they hit the steps, and he grabs Kurt’s hand for just a second. “Yeah,” is all he says.

Kurt’s still beaming at him, though.

Blaine turns to Finn and says, under his breath, “You said your brother was gay, but I didn’t know he was like, _gay_ gay.”

“Come on, man,” is all Finn says.

When Blaine looks up, Kurt’s eyebrows are raised at him in an expression Blaine can only describe as “bitch face,” even though his friend Tina tries to get him to not use that word. And maybe he shouldn't have said that to Finn, but the guy’s wearing tight tan pants and a _neckerchief._

Finn looks apologetically at Kurt, who lets the bitch-face expression ease into a nervous smile. “It’s fine,” Kurt says before Finn has a chance to say anything. “It was uh, very nice to meet you, Blaine,” Kurt adds, but his tone and the look on his face say pretty clearly that it was not very nice to meet him at all.

“Yeah,” Blaine says again. “Look I’m gonna – library,” he makes out. He slips past them and leaves the house before realizing he doesn’t have his bookbag or laptop with him, or even his wallet. But he’s not going back there right now, not for at least a few hours.

It’s way too bright outside, and Blaine’s stomach is sore and rumbling. It’s either hunger, the hangover, or both. He reaches into his pocket and finds a couple of crumpled up ones under his phone, just enough to get him coffee and a bagel at the cafe at the end of the block. That should kill some time, at least.

* * *

When he gets back to the frat house, Kurt is still there. Some of the guys have pulled out Rock Band, which is, in Blaine’s mind, the worst video game ever made. He remembers seeing some charity thing with a video game where all you do is drive a bus through the desert, but at least with that game you weren’t subjected to your friends’ horrible voices struggling to sing songs way out of their range.

Nobody hears Blaine shut the door behind him, but that’s hardly unusual. It’s typically hard to hear anything at all with people coming and going all the time. Blaine takes a few steps into the living room. The guys are doing Tegan and Sara’s The Con, and Kurt is singing. It’s not a very difficult song to sing, but Kurt’s voice still sounds nice singing it. He hits the high notes perfectly, and for a second Blaine forgets how much he’s supposed to hate him.

He could lose himself in that voice. Blaine hasn’t sung in a few years – not outside of Rock Band and karaoke anyway – but he still knows a voice when he hears one, and that kid’s got a _voice._  When the song ends, the first thing he feels is disappointment, but all it takes is Kurt’s “Oh yeah!” as the score screen comes up to shatter whatever fantasy Blaine was forming in his mind.

“You do know that song’s supposed to be sung by a girl, right?” Blaine says, and everyone turns around to look at him.

“Dude,” Puck says to him, and his tone is warning. Part of him can’t believe Puck is defending this, this – _whatever_ he is, this ugly reminder of everything Blaine isn’t. Could be, but isn’t. Someone he takes steps _not_ to be.

“Whatever,” Blaine says, and he slumps down on an armchair next to the couch. “Here, it’s my turn to sing.”

Kurt hands him the mic, but he looks like he’s horrified by the idea of Blaine singing, like he thinks his voice is as pitchy and bad as Finn’s. He wishes he could wipe that look right off his fucking face.

He tells Sam to put on Jimmy Eat World’s The Middle. It’s an easy song, but who cares? He's not trying to impress anyone, and besides, he rocks at this song.

He’s halfway through the song before the lyrics really register. The song’s about not letting the dickheads get you down, about believing in yourself, about believing that things will work out. He’s the reason songs like that exist, he thinks. He’s that dickhead. His stomach pain from earlier is back.

When the song ends and the score screen comes up, showing a near-perfect score on vocals, Blaine closes his eyes and leans back, putting on the best gloating expression he can, despite the anxiety tearing at him.

“Impressive,” Kurt says, and it’s enough for Blaine’s eyes to shoot back open. He’s not sure if he’s angry Kurt said that, talking down to him like Kurt’s some Broadway star and Blaine’s some fourteen year old with a shitty garage band, or giddy with excitement that he’s impressed.

“Yeah, Blaine used to sing in high school, right?” Finn says, and whatever strong emotion he was feeling before morphs into annoyance at Finn’s tone, like he’s trying desperately to find some common ground between him and Kurt.

“Sort of,” Blaine says. That’s all his brothers know – that he sort of used to sing in high school. He’d left out some of the minor details, the unimportant little things they didn’t need to know. Like how he was the lead soloist in an all-male a cappella group, or how the Katy Perry medley he’d helped write won them a national level show choir competition.

Just minute details, really.

Nothing important.

“I think that makes it my turn to sing again,” Kurt says, and Blaine throws the mic back at him, a little harder than he needed to.

* * *

 They spend their afternoon drinking and playing Rock Band. Well, most of them are drinking. Kurt’s limited himself to water, and Blaine’s still too hungover to have any desire to get properly drunk again. He hates this. He _hates_ this. Now there’s two things him and Kurt have in common that nobody else in the room does – they’re not drinking, and they’re both good singers.

But that’s it, he tells himself. That’s where the similarities end.

After a few more songs go by, Blaine finally admits to himself that he’s having fun. Some of the other guys passing through the living room stop for a few minutes to listen to Kurt or Blaine sing. It’s usually Blaine. It’s the biggest ego boost he’s had in awhile. Normally he shares the mic with everyone playing because it’s hard to just _sing_ for two hours, but today he just trades off every other song with Kurt. And God, can that kid sing. After about an hour, he even stops chucking the mic at him.

He isn't really close with a lot of his frat brothers, other than maybe Sam, whom he helps study a lot. He's pretty sure they all like him well enough, but they don't usually go out of their way to invite him to do things with them. But he's still a part of them, he still  _belongs_ , and it feels good to so effortlessly enjoy being with a few of them right now.

“Hey, can we do Hit Me With Your Best Shot?” Finn suggests.

“But it’s my turn to sing,” Blaine says dumbly.

“So?”

“It’s a girl’s song.”

Finn just gives him a look, and Blaine goes to pass the mic to Kurt.

“No, my voice needs a break,” Kurt says, unscrewing his water bottle and taking another sip.

Blaine brings the mic back toward himself, sitting up straighter. “Fine,” he says.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot is a pretty good song, and it’s overwhelmingly fun to sing. He guesses that’s why Finn loves it, and he sure seems to be going to town on those fake drums. Blaine gets into it too, playing around with the notes and the rhythm, even if it loses him some points. By the end of the song, he knows the grin on his face is probably obnoxious and stupid, but he doesn’t care.

Kurt leans forward to grab the mic from him and smiles as he says, “That was actually really good, I didn’t think you had it in you! I’m in an a cappella group on campus, if maybe you’d like to come sing with me for real some time?”

Blaine’s eyes widen and he feels his smile drop.

“No, I don’t want to fucking _sing with you_ , and definitely not in some faggy a cappella group.”

He doesn’t wait for Finn or Puck or Sam or anyone to give him a dirty look or yell at him for saying that word. He picks himself up off the armchair, drops the mic, and moves quickly upstairs to his room. Not quickly enough to look like a child throwing a temper tantrum, he hopes.

He sits down on his bed, his back against the wall. He lets his head slam back against the wall in frustration, but all it does is make his head pound even more.

He fucking hates Kurt Hummel. He shouldn't have overreacted to Kurt just asking him to hang out like that, but something about  _actually singing with him_ was terrifying, and something about it sounded horribly, horribly exciting. He misses The Warblers, he misses singing, but he doesn't want to want to sing with Kurt, and he hates,  _hates_ Kurt for reminding Blaine of that.

He only gets a few moments to himself to stew in his hatred before Finn comes barrelling into the room.

“What the hell, man?” Finn says, and Blaine sighs and wish he could just fall off the face of the planet before he has to have this conversation. “You can’t talk to my fucking brother like that!”

“Oh, like you’ve never called him that?” Blaine says. He doesn’t raise his voice to match Finn’s, his head is still too sore. He’s not looking at Finn, either, just up at the ceiling.

Finn doesn’t respond, and when Blaine looks at him, it’s clear he’s at a loss for words.

So he _has_ called Kurt that. And he’d call Blaine that too.

“I just don’t get what your problem is, man,” Finn says after a moment. “I never took you for a homophobe.”

“I’m not a homophobe,” Blaine says, sighing. He looks away from Finn. He doesn’t want to look at anyone right now. “Your brother’s just annoying. I mean, you can be gay, but you don’t need to rub everyone’s face in it all the time, you know?”

“It’s who he is.”

“Well this is who I am.”

“Kurt’s been through hell about this already.”

“Then I’m sure he can handle it.”

Finn just sighs, and when Blaine moves his eyes from where he has them trained on the ceiling, he sees Finn is pacing.

“Fine,” Finn says, but his tone and the way he throws his hands up in exasperation let Blaine know that it isn’t fine at all. “But Kurt’s my brother, and I already went a whole year of college without ever seeing him. I’m not going to stop hanging out with him, and I’m not going to let him feel like this isn’t a safe place for him.”

“Calm down, he’s your _step_ brother,” Blaine says, looking back up at the ceiling. “You said your parents got married when you were in high school. You’re barely brothers.”

Finn doesn’t respond, but he does stop pacing and looks at Blaine, his eyes boring holes into him.

“If you’re going to be a dick, then don’t hang out with us when he’s here. Find your own shit to do. Stay away from him if he pisses you off so much.”

Finn turns and leaves the room, but all the same, Blaine yells, “Sounds like a great idea to me!”

* * *

 To Blaine’s credit, he really does leave Kurt and Finn alone. Hell, he avoids Finn even when Kurt isn’t around. Kurt only really comes over during the day anyway, so Blaine just usually packs his laptop and his books and goes to the library. When he does have to see Kurt, Blaine spends most of the time glaring while he watches Kurt pretend not to care, or scoffing at every other thing he says.

“You’ve been weird lately,” Tina says to him one day, looking up from her textbook and notes. “You’re always on edge, more than normal, and it’s like you’re barely home. Even I don’t spend this much time in the library.”

Blaine sighs. He’s not _that_ close with Tina, but they have a few classes together and whenever Blaine skips or is too hungover or bored to take notes, Tina shares hers. He knows it’s because she’s into him, but he also genuinely enjoys her company. Really enjoys it, actually, more than most of the guys in his frat. But guys in frats don’t have straight girls for best friends, not unless they’re having casual sex on the side.

So they study together, but that’s it.

“It’s not a big deal,” Blaine says, and he knows he shouldn’t say anything but it’s not like he has anyone else to talk to about this. “One of the guys – Finn – his brother’s been hanging around pretty much all week, and he’s really annoying. I just try to avoid him.”

“Annoying how?”

“Like…” Blaine sighs. _Too gay_ will just get him yelled at, and _reminds me of everything I hate about myself_ is more than he’s willing to admit even to himself. “Okay, we were playing Rock Band, taking turns singing, and all of a sudden it’s like he’s all buddy-buddy with me. Invites me to sing with him in some a cappella group on campus.”

Tina looks at him. “Do you mean Kurt?”

Blaine closes his eyes. Everything is terrible. “Yeah. How do you know him?”

“I’m in the a cappella group too, remember?” Tina says, and thank God it doesn’t look like she’s actually mad that he forgot. “I don’t know him that well, but I remember him saying his stepbrother was in a frat. That and one of the frat brothers was a homophobic ass who constantly gives him a hard time.”

Blaine says nothing, just stares down at the table.

“Oh my God,” Tina says, and her tone lets Blaine know she’s pieced it together. “That’s really, really bad Blaine.”

“Don’t,” is all Blaine can manage.

“I know frat guys are all kind of dicks, but I don’t know, I thought you were above all that.”

Blaine just slams his textbook shut and shoves it in his bag. “I’m going home,” he says.

If Tina says anything to him as he leaves, he doesn’t hear it.

* * *

 Another week goes by, and Blaine has barely seen Kurt at all. He wonders if Kurt’s trying as hard to avoid Blaine as Blaine is trying to avoid him.

He’s almost back to feeling like himself, which, okay, is still on edge and anxious, but better now that Kurt’s not around. Tina’s still not talking to him, though. He tries to convince himself he doesn’t care.

He drains the rest of the beer in the cup he’s been holding before tossing it into a garbage can they set up in the kitchen. It’s already overfilled with other cups, pizza crust, and whatever the hell else, so it bounces off and fell to the floor. He doesn’t care. He’s already drunk, probably doesn’t need anything else to drink tonight.

Plus, he hates those fucking cups, and wishes everyone else didn’t hold them up to be some stupid party symbol. And he swears to god, if he has to hear that fucking Red Solo Cup song one more time, he’s going to quit drinking altogether.

He’s mostly keeping to himself tonight, but he’s still having a good time.

Or, at least, he’s having a good time until he hears that unmistakable voice tease at his ear. Kurt’s somewhere in the living room, talking and laughing with someone. There has to be at least twenty people crammed into the space between where he is at the edge of the kitchen and where Kurt is  in the living room, but that voice seems to pierce right through the noise and the music. He shouldn't have thrown away his cup. Maybe he does need another drink after all.

He pushes his way through the crowd, grabs another cup, pours himself more beer from the keg and watches as Puck and Finn play Sam and Mike in a game of beer pong. Another frat party staple he doesn’t see the appeal of. But it’s something to do, something to pay attention to as he tries to forget that Kurt is in the next room.

One more drink turns into three, and eventually the house starts to empty of people, leaving behind just the guys – the ones who haven’t already left upstairs with some girl, anyway – and a few stragglers. Kurt’s one of the stragglers. He looks so out of place. His outfit still looks clean, his hair still in place, totally at odds with the dozens of broken plastic cups littering the floor and the overwhelming stench of sweat and beer.

He’s sitting on the couch, talking to a group of girls, and it’s apparent every one of them is completely trashed except for Kurt, who’s still just holding onto his water bottle.

Blaine’s too drunk to stop himself from stumbling over toward the couch.

One of the girls says something, but Blaine doesn’t follow it. He’s too drunk. He leans forward on the back of the couch for support, just a foot away from the back of Kurt’s head.

“Yeah, that’s true!” He hears Kurt say. “But I mean, I read in Vogue last month –”

“Vogue?” Blaine blurts out, trying to summon as much disdain in his voice as he can. “Seriously? _Vogue?_ ”

“And what’s wrong with Vogue?” Kurt says, turning around to face Blaine.

“Don’t you ever get tired of being a walking, talking parody of yourself?” Blaine says, and before he can stop himself, he adds, “You are literally the gayest person I’ve ever met. It’s not a compliment. What is wrong with you?”

Kurt’s eyes widen, and Blaine’s surprised – and a little impressed – with how threatening he can look when he’s angry. But he decides he doesn’t want to see if there’s any substance to his threatening look and turns away toward the bathroom. It’s finally empty, and he’s had to piss for hours.

He’s just about to close the door when Kurt pushes it back open, making Blaine falter back a few steps until his back’s against the sink.

“What, you gonna kiss me?” Blaine asks, his voice mockingly high.

But the bathroom’s small, and Kurt’s right there – he hadn’t realized before, but Kurt’s a few inches taller than Blaine is, and they’re close enough together that he can feel Kurt’s breath on his face. The way Blaine’s leaning back on the counter makes him feel even smaller, and it’s like Kurt is taking up every other square inch of space in the entire bathroom.

Too close. Too close. Too warm. This is bad. He needs to get out of here. It’s too hot and he can’t breathe. He can feel his breath becoming quick and shallow, and he hates himself, and he hates Kurt more. Probably. He needs to get out of here.

“What’s your problem with me, anyway?” Kurt shouts at him, and he’s way too close. Blaine knows his eyes are probably wide with fear, and he hopes Kurt can’t tell that he’s actually trembling. “I thought I left all this crap back in high school. I thought I’d seen all I had to see of the idiot neanderthals who wanted me to hate myself. I thought I’d –”

Kurt stops suddenly, and Blaine doesn’t know why. He didn’t hit Kurt, at least he doesn’t think so. No, he couldn’t have. His hands were gripping the counter too hard, trying to keep himself upright.

“Oh my God,” Kurt says, and he takes a few steps back from Blaine. “You’re gay.”

“I’m not –”

“Yeah, you are,” Kurt says, and all of a sudden Kurt looks just as scared as Blaine feels. “I’m not doing – I can’t – I can’t do this again. I can’t do this again.”

Kurt practically runs bathroom and a second later he hears the front door slam.

It seems like hours before Blaine can get his breathing back under control.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It gets worse before it gets better.
> 
> Content warnings for vomiting/emetophobia, some homophobia (but less than chapter one), descriptions of panic attacks/anxiety and mentions of/allusions to suicide.

_I can’t do this again. I can’t do this again._

The words swirl around in Blaine’s mind as he stares at the ceiling. He’s been staring for a long, long time.

_I can't do this again._

Kurt had looked so scared all of a sudden. And what the hell did _again_ mean?

Finn had said something to that effect too, right?

_He’s been through hell about this already._

He needs to do something. What if Kurt tells someone? What if he tells Finn? He’s his stepbrother, Finn _has_ to accept Kurt. Blaine’s just the dickhead who treats his brother like shit, and that would be unforgivable on top of – on top of _the other thing._

Especially if Kurt had gone through this before, Blaine thinks, but he’s still not entirely sure what _this_ means.

He doesn’t know what to do. He has half a mind to dig through Facebook until he finds Kurt’s profile and send him a message begging him not to tell anybody, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He hates how guilty he feels.

_Can’t do this again. Can’t do this again. Again. Again. Again._

Again.

It’s not like Blaine hasn’t been through this before. There’s a reason he’s pushed all that behind him. It’s his choice to make. He didn't like his life, so why shouldn't he change it? Wasn’t changing it the healthy thing to do? He wanted to be happy and successful, he wanted to have the money his parents had, to continue the Anderson name and make them proud. Give his parents grandkids. And maybe he'd never love his wife the way most men do, but he wasn't going to give up the future he wanted for that. It wasn't worth it.

He might have been through this before, but never on this side of it, never as the aggressor. He’s every kid who made him hide like this in the first place.

Blaine feels sick.

_Can’t do this again. Can’t do this again._

He gets up from the bed, runs from his bedroom to the upstairs bathroom, and vomits up everything he drank last night.

* * *

He spends most of the day alone in his room, trying desperately to fall back asleep but not having any luck. He’s so nauseous again, and it’s all he can do to hold down a glass of water and a couple of stale crackers.

No one comes to bother him. He’s not hurt or even surprised by it; it’s not like it’s the first time he’s exiled himself to his room with a particularly bad hangover. Hell, at least one of his brothers is doing the same thing after pretty much every party they throw. Plus, there’s enough people around that he’s sure his absence barely registers.

When he gives on up sleep, he tries to watch TV on his laptop. It feels like the first time in his life he hasn’t been able to lose himself in Gilmore Girls.

_I mean, you can be gay, but you don’t need to rub everyone’s face in it all the time, you know?_

He’s pretty sure watching Gilmore Girls counts as “rubbing everyone’s face in it,” so he watches it with headphones. The walls are thin. He can hear the other guys watching porn once in awhile, but this is worse, somehow.

_Don’t you ever get tired of being a walking, talking parody of yourself?_

He tries to shake the thought from his head, his own hateful words from his head, and focus on the episode. But the episode is focusing on Kirk, and it all sounds too much like Kurt that it just makes Blaine angry and he shuts his laptop and tosses it onto the end of his bed.

Someone knocks on his door.

“Go away,” Blaine says. It’s not quite a yell, he doesn’t know if he could even get his voice to do that right now. He lets himself fall onto his back on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

He hears the door open anyway.

“I’m really hungover,” Blaine says, not bothering to look at whoever it is. He brings his arm over his face, his elbow covering his eyes. “I don’t want to –”

“Blaine.”

Blaine opens his eyes and sits up so fast he’s surprised he didn’t throw up again. Kurt is standing in his bedroom.

“What are you doing here?” Blaine asks, and he looks warily toward the door. Kurt hadn’t closed it behind him.

Kurt sits himself down in Blaine’s desk chair. He looks like he’s trying extremely hard not to look scared. “I thought you might want to talk.”

“And why would I want to do that?”

Kurt sighs, and Blaine turns back towards the door. He can’t decide if he wants to close it or not. Would it be worse if someone walked by and saw him alone in here with Kurt, or if someone walked by and _heard_ him alone in here with Kurt, with the door closed?

“Because I –” Kurt starts. “Would you at least look at me?”

His voice is angry and demanding and a little shrill. Blaine turns away from the door and looks at Kurt. He wishes he could be looking at anyone, anything else.

“Okay, I’m looking at you. Why would I want to talk to you?”

Kurt closes his eyes, and he sounds like he’s trying very hard to keep his voice calm and polite. “I know this is probably really confusing for you. I know the kind of pressure you’re under, okay? I know you don’t like me very much, but I need you to know that you aren’t alone.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re gay, Blaine,” Kurt says, opening his eyes and looking back at Blaine. “There’s really no sense trying to hide it. I looked you up, you know, after I got home last night. You sang for The Warblers. You won Nationals. I saw the video – you were incredible. I kind of wish I could have seen it live, but we only made it to Regionals that year.”

“Singing for The Warblers doesn’t make me gay,” Blaine retorts flatly.

“Hiding it kind of does,” Kurt says. “Finn told me you ‘sort of used to sing’? You won a national level show choir competition. You’ve lived with these guys for over a year and none of them know that? Why else would you hide it, unless you thought it would tip them off?”

Blaine just stares at him.

“I haven’t told anyone,” Kurt says. Blaine hates how sincere he sounds. “And I won’t.”

“Thanks,” Blaine tries. “I just didn't like who I was or what my life was like – y’know, back then. So I – I mean, everyone tries to reinvent themselves in college.”

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

“Why not?” Blaine says, but he knows it’s a stupid question. Because it’s eating him alive. Because he watches TV with headphones in and jumps every time he hears a noise. Because he loves Broadway so much that instead of going to Mexico for spring break last year, he went to New York alone and spent all week waiting in line for rush tickets to shows. Because Kurt’s right, a straight guy wouldn’t worry about this. 

Kurt must have seen the defeated look on Blaine’s face because he doesn’t say anything.

“Why are you doing this?” Blaine asks, all the fight gone from his voice.

“I need you to know you aren’t alone.”

“Why? I’ve been awful to you.”

“Because I – I know what it’s like to be there. Alone.” Kurt takes a breath before continuing. That scared look is back. “And I’ve seen what happens to guys like you, guys who put all this pressure on themselves to be someone they’re not.”

“And what happens to them?”

Kurt’s eyes widen. He looks nervous. “Nothing good,” he says.

“I’m not going to – hurt myself or anything, Kurt,” Blaine says. He tries not to think about the panic and the anxiety and how often it’s made him want to do just that. “And you don’t need to keep talking down to me. I’m not a child. Hell, I’m older than you!”

“We’re the same age, actually,” Kurt says.

“I thought you were a freshman?”

Kurt lets out a frustrated sigh, then leans across Blaine’s desk and picks up a pencil. He finds a scrap piece of paper and scribbles something down. When he’s done, he holds it up for Blaine to see. “It’s my number. In case you ever need anyone to talk to.”

“I think I’ll be okay, thanks,” Blaine says, and he hopes his voice sounds as venomous as he wanted it to.

“They won’t care, you know,” Kurt says, standing up from the desk chair. “It seems like a huge deal but they won’t care. I went to high school with a few of these guys, and Finn is my brother. They aren’t like that.”

“Would you fuck off already?”

Kurt brings his arms up, then lets them fall to his sides in exasperation. “You know what? Fine. Stay in the closet. Keep living your miserable life, keep telling yourself this is who you really are. I don’t care. But I know the truth.”

Blaine rolls his eyes. “God, would you stop being such a –”

“What? Do you think calling me some name is going to make me any less gay? Do you think it’ll make _you_ any less gay?” Kurt’s voice is way too loud, and Blaine whips his head back toward the door.

“Forget it. I tried. I’m not doing this again,” Kurt says, and it sounds to Blaine like he’s saying it more to himself than he is to Blaine.

“Fine. Just leave me alone.”

Kurt walks toward the door, then seems to reconsider. He turns back to look at Blaine. “There are a lot worse things than being gay, you know,” he says. “You’re being a coward, and that’s worse. What are you so afraid of? Have some god damn courage.”

He doesn’t give Blaine a chance to respond, just storms out of his room.

Blaine rolls over until he’s lying on his stomach on his bed, his head pressed face down into his pillow. Maybe he’ll get lucky and suffocate and forget he ever had this conversation.

* * *

He wakes up Monday morning feeling just as awful as he did on Sunday morning, groaning as he realizes that the whole weekend hadn’t been some elaborate nightmare. He really did pick a fight with Kurt on Saturday night, Kurt really did call him out, Kurt really did waltz into his room and offer to _talk him through it._

He hates himself. He hates that he treats Kurt like garbage and Kurt still showed up, concerned for Blaine’s wellbeing. He hates Kurt’s number, scrawled on that piece of paper, now hidden at the back of one of his desk drawers. He hates that Kurt offered to help and Blaine just yelled at him until he left. He hates Kurt with everything that he is.

This is Kurt’s fault, he tells himself. Kurt brought this on himself and he’s making Blaine miserable on purpose.

But Blaine doesn’t even believe that anymore.

He ditches class to watch more Gilmore Girls and sleep.

* * *

 

On Tuesday, he goes to class. He’s so distracted that he takes his normal spot in his philosophy lecture, next to Tina, but she doesn’t talk to him through the entire lecture. In fact, she seems to be very pointedly ignoring him.

Oh right. She’s still mad about the Kurt thing.

_The Kurt thing._

They usually go to the library after philosophy, even if they’re not talking, but today he just goes home.

* * *

He knows better than to try to talk to any of the guys at the frat – what could he say, anyway, without giving it all away? – but he’s still a little relieved when Sam walks tentatively into his room on Wednesday night. He’s closer with Sam than he is with the other guys, and it was Sam that suggested Greek life to Blaine in the first place.

“We’re worried about you,” Sam admits.

Blaine looks up from his laptop, pulling out his headphones. “Why?”

“Dude,” Sam says, and he sits down in Blaine’s desk chair, right where Kurt was sitting a few days ago. “You’ve barely talked to anyone all week. You’ve just been up here for days.”

“I’m fine.”

“Look, dude,” Sam says, and Blaine just wishes he would stop saying  _dude._  “I know, okay?”

Blaine feels his stomach drop. “You know?”

“Yeah. And I’ve been there too.”

“You’ve,” Blaine tries, and he lets out a nervous laugh. “You’re not –”

“Not anymore, maybe, but I was after my dad lost his job,” Sam says, almost reluctantly, like it’s hard for him to admit it too.

Blaine shakes his head. “Wait, what? What do you mean,  _not anymore_?”

“There’s medication and stuff,” Sam says. “It doesn’t have to last forever. There’s people you can talk to.”

“Sam,” Blaine says slowly, “What exactly do you think I’m going through right now?”

“You’re depressed.”

Blaine lets out a small laugh, and he hopes it disguises his sigh of relief. “Depressed,” he repeats.

“It’s okay, man,” Sam says. “It doesn’t make you weak or anything, it just happens.”

“I’m not depressed,” Blaine says, but he knows it’s probably a lie. Well, not depressed maybe, but he sure would like to go through an entire day without feeling like he’s going to vomit from anxiety.

Sam shrugs. “I’m here if you want to talk, or I could help you get set up with a therapist, or something.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Sam stands up, and the look he gives Blaine is full of concern. He slaps his hand on Blaine’s shoulder as he walks past him toward the door. “Just think about it, okay?”

“Yeah.”

* * *

 Sam’s right, Blaine thinks to himself a few days later. He needs to stop moping, he needs to get out there again and have fun.

Of course, he knows that’s not what Sam was trying to say at all. He was just trying to tell Blaine to deal with his shit instead of just pretending none of it is happening.

Blaine’s pretty sure the first thing sounds easier, though.

* * *

Blaine shows up to his next philosophy lecture fifteen minutes early, holding two cups of coffee. He waits by the lecture hall doors, searching through the crowd for Tina.

She just gives him an annoyed look when she sees him, but Blaine runs up to her anyway, thrusting one of the coffees toward her. “I got you a coffee. Two milks, right?”

“You know my coffee order,” Tina says with a hint of surprise, but there isn’t any warmth or friendliness in her voice. All the same, she takes the coffee from Blaine.

“Of course I do,” Blaine tries. “Look, I’m really sorry about – about everything with Kurt. I really don’t want it to come between us.” It’s only half a lie. He’s not sorry about anything he said to Kurt, but he really does miss Tina.

“Then I’m not the person you should be apologizing to,” Tina says.

“I know, I know,” Blaine says. “I’m working on it. I’m really – I’m not that guy, Tina. I don’t know what got into me, I’m really not like that.”

“Really? Because it kind of seems like you are.”

“Tina,” Blaine pleads, and he grabs her free hand. “Look. I’ll prove it to you. Have dinner with me tomorrow night.”

Tina raises her eyebrows. “Dinner? Like a dinner _date?_ ”

“Yeah, if you want,” Blaine says, and this isn’t going how he planned it in his head at all.

“The things you said about Kurt made me really nervous,” Tina says, but at least she’s looking at him now. She also hasn’t pulled her hand away yet.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry.” God, he hopes he looks sincere.

“Again, not the person you need to apologize to.”

“Will you have dinner with me?”

Tina rolls her eyes, but Blaine can see her weighing the decision in her mind.

“Fine,” she says eventually. “I’ll have dinner with you.”

She pulls her hand away and walks away from him into the lecture hall, sitting far away from their usual spot. He wonders if a _no_ could possibly have felt as bad as  _fine_ did.

* * *

 He’s never really been on a _date_ with a girl before, and he doesn’t really know what to do. He picks an Italian restaurant next to campus and asks Tina to meet him in front of the library at seven. It’s just a short walk from there to the restaurant, and he knows Tina would be coming from that direction anyway.

When he meets Tina, he’s a little taken aback at how beautiful she looks. She’s wearing a bright orange dress, and Blaine always did love how bright colours looked on her. She’s also smiling at him for the first time in two weeks. He wonders what made her forgive him.

“You look gorgeous,” he says, and it isn’t a lie. Not really at least.

She actually blushes, and Blaine can’t believe this is working. “Thank you.”

He flashes her his best smile, then reaches out his hand. He wonders if that’s too forward, then reminds himself he usually only knows women for an hour or two before sleeping with them. Surely a little handholding is fine.

Tina seems to agree, because she grabs his hand, and then they’re walking so closely that most of their arms are pressed together.

“I didn’t think you were into me,” Tina confesses. “I’m not really your type, you know?”

Blaine feels his stomach drop. “My type?”

“You know,” Tina says, and her arm is so close it’s easy for her to nudge him in his side. He can’t believe this is happening. Tina had never said anything before, maybe Kurt told her, maybe she had known the whole time. Maybe –

“The whole pretty sorority girl thing,” Tina continues after Blaine doesn’t respond. “I see the girls at those parties.”

“Oh,” Blaine says, and he lets out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, it’s fun, but I’m looking for a little something more right now.”

“I’m so glad,” Tina replies, and she’s practically beaming at him.

They don’t really talk for the rest of the walk, and it makes Blaine nervous. It’s giving him way too much time to focus on how awful he feels about leading her on like this. But at the same time, if he really did have to date any of the women he knew, he was pretty sure it would be Tina. She's cool and they get along so well, and apparently she can sing.

When they get to the restaurant, the hostess seats them in a small booth, tucked away in a corner of the restaurant. They order their meals, and Tina lets her arm lay across the top of the table. It’s a few minutes before Blaine realizes that he’s supposed to be holding her hand.

He grasps it, and he’s met with another bright smile from Tina.

“I talked to Kurt after rehearsal last night,” she says.

Blaine feels his eyes widen. He’s getting really sick of his anxiety being like this, and he tries to smile. It’s harder not to let nerves show when you’re two feet away and staring right at each other. “Oh yeah? Did you tell him about us – that we were going out?”

“Is that what we’re doing?” Tina asks. Fuck. _Fuck._ “Are we going out?”

“We’re out right now, aren’t we?” He tries to smile. God, fuck.

“Don’t be so nervous,” Tina continues. She’s still smiling, and that’s probably a good sign. “I told him we were friends, and asked if you were the homophobic frat boy he had been talking about.”

“What did he say?”

“He said you were,” Tina admits, and her smile has faded a little, “but that you apologized and talked it out and things are okay now. He said you’re going through something, and maybe it was just that stress that was making you act like that?”

The way she phrases it like a question makes Blaine nervous. It sounds like she wants him to reassure her that yes, that was what had happened. He was just stressed out and took it out on Kurt, but they talked it out and they’re friends now.

But why is Kurt covering for him?

“We did sort of talk it out,” Blaine says. It’s like he can physically _feel_ himself falling deeper into the hole he’s digging himself. “He’s a cool guy,” Blaine says, and hopes it didn’t sound as forced as it felt.

“He is,” Tina says, “and that  _voice!_  I could lose myself for days in that voice.”

“God, me too,” Blaine says before he can stop himself. He realizes what he’s said and changes the topic away from Kurt. Anything but Kurt.

Instead, he asks her about how she’s liking her sophomore year, about what high school was like for her, about why she enjoys performing so much. She seems happy and eager to share, and thankfully doesn’t notice that Blaine isn’t sharing much back. He gets the feeling she doesn’t get to talk about herself a lot, and that just adds to Blaine’s feelings of guilt.

When they finish their meals, Blaine orders them dessert – a hot brownie sundae – and they share it. He’s pretty sure that’s what you’re supposed to do on dates. He lets Tina eat most of it, his stomach still churning unpleasantly.

When they finish the sundae, Blaine pays for the meal and they leave the restaurant, hand in hand.

The sun’s already set, and Blaine always thought campus looked nice at night. The library’s such a tall, colossal building that the lights on the upper floors shine like a beacon across campus. They’re making their way back toward it – Blaine doesn’t really know why, but isn’t sure what else to do – and Tina isn’t talking but she’s holding his hand and leaning on his arm even more than she was before dinner.

It’s actually kind of romantic. Blaine could do this, he thinks. It feels okay when it’s Tina.

They stop when they reach the library, and Blaine puts his hands on Tina’s shoulders to turn her around to face him.

“I’m sorry it took so long for me to see what was right in front of me,” Blaine says, looking into her eyes. He hopes she can’t tell that he’s lying. “I really care about you, Tina.”

That part, at least, isn’t a lie, but that’s mostly why he feels like shit about it.

“I really care about you too, Blaine,” she says. She’s looking up at him, a little expectantly.

_Oh._ Before he can really think he just leans forward and presses his lips against Tina’s.

Tina kisses him back, and when she pulls away, he realizes she’s holding both of his hands.

“There’s a party tonight,” Blaine says dumbly. It’s Friday. Of course there’s a party. “Do you want to go with me?”

Tina just looks at him.

“We don’t have to – nothing like that. I’m not trying to turn this into a one night stand or anything,” Blaine says. He feels like an idiot. “We don’t even have to drink. I won’t if you don’t want me to. I just thought it might be nice to spend more time with you, maybe dance a little bit.”

“I’d really like that,” Tina says, the smile back on her face.

* * *

 Tina, it turns out, is full of surprises.

She doesn’t take him up on his no-drinking offer, and instead starts pounding back the beers as soon as they arrive. Blaine enjoys her when she’s sober but there’s something even better about her when she’s tipsy. She’s the life of the party, talking to everyone a little bit, singing along with the music. Her voice is good.

Not as good as Kurt’s, he thinks, but he chases the thought away with another gulp of shitty beer.

Honestly, it’s the most fun Blaine’s had at a party all year. He dances with Tina a lot, and it’s so different from how he normally dances with girls. It’s less of a performance – he really is just genuinely having fun. They’re both tipsy and moving a lot and smiling at each other. She even laughs it off when he spills half his beer on her dress.

When they’re not dancing, Blaine is mostly just admiring her from afar.

He’s perched on the armrest of the couch when Tina comes over, grabbing both of his hands to pull him into a standing position. “Blainers! Come on, guess who’s here!”

He’s been facing away from the door, so he hasn’t seen anyone come in. Not that he’d be able to tell anyway with how many people were crammed into the living room. Tina pulls him through the crowd and when they finally get to the door, Kurt’s standing there smiling.

“Kurt,” Blaine says. He remembers that they’re supposed to be friends now and tries to smile back.

“Hey Blaine,” Kurt says. He has to shout a little over the music. Blaine watches Kurt look between him and Tina. He raises his eyebrows at Blaine. “Tina mentioned you guys studied together, I didn’t realize you guys were so close.”

“Oh, we’re close,” Blaine says, wrapping an arm around Tina’s waist and pulling her closer to him. Tina just laughs and presses her hand against his chest.

Kurt’s smile turns into something that looks more like a pained grimace, and Blaine just glares at him.

Tina doesn’t seem to notice though. “Come on, Kurt!” She yells over the music, grabbing Kurt’s hand with both of hers, “Let’s go dance!”

Blaine watches Kurt let himself be pulled through the crowd, back to the spot by the couch where he had been dancing with Tina earlier. Blaine wishes he could do absolutely anything but follow them, but he knows he’s still on thin ice with Tina.

When he catches up to them, they’re already lost in the music, and Kurt is dancing way too close to Tina. It’s almost a goad. Like Kurt’s just doing it to show Blaine that even gay guys can grind on girls, that’s not enough, that doesn’t prove anything.

So Blaine walks right up to Tina, wraps his arm around her again, pulling her away from Kurt and into his arms and just kisses her.

He can feel her stop moving in his arms – she had been so _bouncy_ before, moving to the beat – but he doesn’t stop. He sucks on her lower lip until she opens her mouth and kisses him back, and soon enough, they’re really just standing there making out. She tastes like beer and chocolate and they’re both drunk enough that it’s a little sloppy, but it’s still so much more pleasant than kissing other girls. Blaine continues the kiss but opens his eyes just enough to sweep them across the room.

His vision’s blurry and it’s dark and crowded but he can’t see Kurt.

Good.

It feels like forever that they’ve been kissing, but Blaine knows he can’t be the one to stop first. If he does, Kurt wins.

Eventually Tina breaks the kiss, pulling back but keeping her arms around Blaine’s waist. “You’re so great,” she says, and God, she’s drunk but she looks so happy, it makes Blaine want to be dead. She rocks him back and forth with her arms around his hips. “You’re so great… Your – your cute little nose and your curly hair.” She reaches up and messes up his hair a little bit.

“Thanks, Tina,” is all he can come up with to say back.

They go back to dancing after that, and it’s just as fun as it was before. He almost – _almost –_ forgets he ran into Kurt.

“I have to pee,” Tina announces after a while. “Where can I do that?”

Blaine gives her quick directions to the third floor bathroom next to his bedroom, knowing it’s probably one of the cleaner ones at this point. She kisses him quickly on the lips before disappearing into the crowd.

Blaine decides to get a drink.

He makes his way into the kitchen toward the fridge, where he’d stashed a few bottles of good beer at the back of a vegetable crisper. He opens the fridge, leans over and pulls out the drawer, and thank god, someone hadn’t gone snooping and stolen them.

All of a sudden there’s a voice in his ear. “You can’t do that to her.”

Blaine stands up so fast he bangs his head off the top of the fridge. “Fuck,” he yells, grabbing his head where he had hit it. Kurt’s standing next to him with this expression like he’d laugh if he didn’t just pity Blaine. Kurt’s also got a drink in his hand, the first time Blaine’s ever seen him with one. “God, fuck, you scared me.”

“I could tell I scared you the first time we met,” Kurt says, but Blaine pretends not to hear him. He grabs a magnetic bottle opener off the fridge and pops the cap off his beer. He brings it to his lips and drinks a third of it right away.

“Classy,” Kurt sneers at him when he’s done. 

“Shut up,” Blaine says, and he wishes he could have come up with something a little more clever.

“You’re being really cruel, leading her on like that.” His words aren’t as clear as they usually are, and – oh my God, Kurt's  _drunk._ Blaine couldn't have been making-out-slash-dancing with Tina for that long. He wonders if Kurt’s been throwing back the drinks since he left him and Tina or if he’s really just that much of a lightweight.

Kurt drains the rest of his own drink, and Blaine can’t help but stare.

“I’m not leading her on,” Blaine says once Kurt has finished his drink and set his cup down on the counter.

“I saw you looking for me when you were trying to suck her face off,” Kurt says, and then he reaches his hand out and grabs Blaine’s beer and drinks all of that, too.

Blaine doesn’t even try to grab it back, he just stares at him, dumbfounded.

“There you are!”

Blaine turns and then there’s Tina, making her way over to him and Kurt.

“Oh, I’m so glad you two are friends now,” she says to both of them, apparently oblivious to the fact that they’re glaring at each other. She turns to Blaine. “But Blaine, I ran into my roommate and she’s really upset – she came here with this guy and he – it’s a whole thing. I don’t have time to – I have to go help her.”

Blaine wraps his arms around her and gives her a quick kiss. “Okay,” he says. His head’s swimming. What are you supposed to say at the end of a first date? He’s pretty sure most first dates don’t end with one person needing to run out to take care of their drunk friend and the other person distracted by their arch nemesis, which makes it even harder to know what to do.

“Go take care of her, okay? I had fun tonight.” He says lamely.

Tina kisses him then, just a quick peck on the lips. “Me too,” she says, and then she turns around and she’s gone.

“And the Tony for Best Performance by a Leading Actor goes to!”

Blaine closes his eyes, tightening his hands into fists, as he turns back toward Kurt. “People usually just say ‘The Oscar.’”

“That was way too gay for the Oscars,” Kurt slurs. God, he’s trashed.

Blaine can feel himself step forward toward Kurt, his fist still clenched at his side, but as he does someone knocks Kurt from behind and next thing Blaine knows he’s on the floor, and Kurt’s on top of him, and no, no, no.

Blaine’s eyes are wide and his heart is pounding and he needs to leave, but Kurt’s weight is on him and Blaine just manages to scramble back before taking a good look at Kurt’s face, which is dazed, his eyes are closed and he’s swaying and –

And then Kurt throws up on him, all over Blaine’s calves, socks and shoes.

Blaine’s in full panic mode now, nobody’s looking at them, nobody seems to care but he’s on the floor and Kurt’s there with him and Kurt just threw up on him and Blaine can’t breathe. He needs to get out of here, he needs to leave, but he can’t leave Kurt, can’t leave one of his best friends’ little brothers to vomit up everything he’s eaten in the last eight hours on the floor of some dirty frat house totally alone.

He uses the handle of the fridge to pull himself to his feet, then reaches down and grabs Kurt by his upper arm. That has to be the least incriminating spot for Blaine to pull him up by. Kurt has only just risen, shaking, to his feet when Blaine uses the hand he still has wrapped around Kurt’s arm to pull him through the rest of the people in the kitchen, toward the back door.

The deck isn’t packed, but there are a few people outside smoking. “Go away, people,” Blaine yells as he closes the door behind him. “Very sick kid here. Go away unless you want to get puked on.”

He doesn’t think it’s going to work, but it does. The vomit still on Blaine’s shoes and around Kurt’s mouth probably helped a little bit, and before he knows it, Blaine and Kurt are alone on the deck.

He doesn’t let go of Kurt’s arm until he’s pushed Kurt to the corner of the deck. It’s about five feet up off the ground, and the railing is high enough that there isn’t any risk of Kurt falling over. Kurt leans against it, bent over double.

Blaine wants to be dead. That’s all he knows. That’s all he’s ever known. He can’t ever imagine a time when he hasn’t wanted to be dead because he wants to be dead so badly right now. Usually being outside helps but it’s not this time, and Kurt looks like he’s going to throw up again and Blaine can’t breathe and now he feels like he’s going to throw up too.

He shoots a hand out to the deck railing to support himself.

“Are you going to throw up again?” He pants, and it’s hard to even focus on Kurt but he’s pretty sure Kurt’s shaking his head, and then he gets to his feet.

He needs to clean himself off. Kurt, too. He feels dirty and it isn't helping his nausea at all.

There’s nothing around he can use to clean it up, no towels, nothing, and he’s just in a polo and shorts, which means he can’t just take something off to use as a makeshift rag.

He steps closer to Kurt and brings his hands to the knot around his neck. His hands are shaking so badly he’s surprised he’s able to untie the knot at all, and even more surprised Kurt is just letting him do it.

He pulls the neckercheif from around Kurt’s neck and presses it against Kurt’s chin, wiping off the vomit drying there.

Kurt’s neck is bare, and he’s so close. He’s right there, and Blaine’s holding his scarf and he needs to get this vomit off him.

His breath is getting worse and he grabs onto the deck again for balance as he pulls off his socks and shoes, wiping down his ankles and feet with the neckerchief.

“That’s – it’s designer.” Kurt protests, but he sounds dazed and there’s no fight in his voice.

“I don’t care.”

His voice must have given away how much trouble he’s having breathing, because Kurt squats down until he’s level with Blaine, who’s still desperately trying to clean himself off.

“Blaine?”

“I’m fine,” Blaine snaps, way too quickly to have been convincing and he knows that, and it’s getting worse. Kurt’s scarf is full of vomit and and even though most of Blaine’s legs are clean now he desperately needs a shower. All he can feel is his pulse in his throat and his stomach turning and he’s getting lightheaded.

He flings the scarf away from him and it lands a few feet away on the deck and Blaine lets himself fall until he’s sitting on the deck with his back against the railing.

“Are you okay?”

And Blaine just shakes his head. No, no, he’s not. Nothing is okay. He’s here. He’s ruining everything with Tina, who’s probably his best friend. He hates being at home. Kurt threw up on him and now Blaine’s having a panic attack in front of him. Kurt is sick and it’s his fault. He can feel the tears start to sting his eyes and he pulls up his knees to his chest and buries his head there, hoping Kurt doesn’t see him cry.

“Blaine, it’s okay,” Kurt says, and Kurt’s hand is on his back.

_Kurt’s hand is on his back._ He so badly wants to swat it away or yell at him or call him a name but he doesn’t. He’s too far gone and having his hand there helps.

It helps.

“Just breathe,” Kurt says, his voice slurred but still quiet and slow and soothing.

Blaine tries to nod and tries to breathe but he’s pretty sure he’s failing at both.

Kurt’s hand is rubbing circles on his back now. “Breathe,” he repeats. It’s evident from his voice that Kurt isn’t really okay either. He sounds dazed and distant, like he's only half-aware of what's going on and trying hard not to throw up again. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

Eventually, miraculously, Blaine’s breathing slows, and his stomach calms down, and the tears stop stinging his eyes.

“Thanks,” is all Blaine can think to say. He lets his legs fall back down from where he was pressing them against his chest.

“Do you need to get out of here?”

“Yes,” Blaine says, quickly and without thinking. “Yes.”

Kurt stands up, slowly, and stretches his hand out for Blaine. Blaine doesn’t even think twice before grabbing it and letting Kurt pull him to his feet.

“My apartment’s fifteen minutes from here,” Kurt says. “Do you think you can make it?”

Blaine nods. He looks down at his discarded shoes and socks, and decides the socks are replaceable. He leaves them on the deck but grabs his shoes, holding onto them by the backs as he and Kurt climb down the steps to the deck. They walk around the side of the house together, and take off down the sidewalk toward Kurt’s apartment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for discussions of suicide.

The two of them must look terrible.

The sidewalk under Blaine’s bare feet is scratchy and he keeps staring down, worried he’s going to step on glass. Kurt is walking slowly and unsteadily, and whenever Blaine looks over at him, he’s worried Kurt’s going to throw up again.

It’s hard to keep his distance from Kurt when both of them are having difficulty walking straight. Blaine tries to stay to the far side of the sidewalk, but Kurt keeps brushing against him all the same. It’s driving Blaine crazy and isn’t helping the feeling in his stomach.

They haven’t said anything since they left the frat house, and Blaine isn’t really sure he knows what to say. He has no idea what the fuck he’s doing. All he knows is that he wanted to be out of that house, away from the noise and the mess and the people so badly that he let Kurt drag him away.

And Kurt helped him. What the fuck was that all about?

Blaine goes over everything that had just happened in his mind, trying to explain Kurt’s actions to himself. He can’t, and the attempt is making his head hurt. He looks back down at his feet and continues walking.

It feels like hours later when they finally make it to Kurt’s apartment.

Blaine doesn’t know what he was expecting Kurt’s apartment to look like, but he’s shocked by how _normal_ it looks. It’s just an apartment. It’s small and cramped and cluttered and full of all the things you’d expect to see in a college student’s apartment.

As soon as they get in the door, Kurt takes his shoes off and walks through the apartment to what Blaine assumes is his bedroom. Kurt’s back is to Blaine as he walks down the hallway, unbuttoning his shirt.

Blaine doesn’t really know what to do with himself, so he just stands on the mat, trying to wipe off any dirt stuck to the bottom of his feet.

Kurt closes the door behind him, but not all the way. There’s some noise, like Kurt keeps falling and grabbing onto things for support. A moment later he comes back out in sweatpants and a t-shirt. The t-shirt is tight and Blaine is surprised by how muscular Kurt’s arms are. Nothing Kurt usually wears shows off his muscles like that. He jerks his eyes away when he realizes he’s been staring.

Before Kurt can even say anything to Blaine, the door next to his opens, and a girl with brown hair and a big, fluffy pink bathrobe emerges.

“I was trying to sleep,” she complains, “I need to get up early. I booked the dance studio to practice and the only time it was available was at seven, so I –”

She catches sight of Blaine, still standing on the front mat in his bare feet, holding his shoes.

“Rachel, this is Blaine,” Kurt says, nodding his head backward to where Blaine is standing. He sounds dazed, his voice completely flat. “We’re sorry for waking you up.”

Blaine lifts his arm in a halfhearted wave.

Rachel is still staring at him, her eyes narrowed, as if she’s sizing him up. She seems to figure something out, because all of a sudden she whips her head back to Kurt.

“Wait – Blaine? This is him? The guy with the voice?”

Kurt’s back is to him, so Blaine can’t see the expression he’s making, but he’s not saying anything. Rachel huffs a little then pushes past him, walking towards Blaine.

“I’m Rachel Berry,” she says, reaching her hand out for him to shake. “I’m a sophomore and I’m a singer too. Well I’m not just a singer, I’m a national level show choir champion, just like Kurt – but it was my solo that won us first place, and I’m not afraid to admit that I know that. But that’s probably not fair, most people don’t have the opportunities I’ve had. My dads put me in singing lessons when I was two. I’ve been practicing my whole life, and I’m going to be on Broadway some day.”

She says all of this without taking a single breath.

“Kurt says you can sing but I don’t trust his ear sometimes. He tends to lose his judgement around boys, which is why I’ve sworn them off. I can’t let love get in the way of finding someone who’s a good match for me vocally. I can worry about finding true love after I’ve won my first Tony. Speaking of Tony’s – have you ever competed? In anything besides –” She pauses and slowly drags her eyes up his body, a disapproving look on her face, before continuing, “– trashy bar karaoke?”

Blaine waits a moment, trying to process everything she’s said. He half expects her to keep going without waiting for his answer, but she doesn’t and she’s looking at him expectantly.

“My school’s show choir won Nationals one time while I was in high school,” Blaine admits. He’s dazed too and barely feeling present in his own body, and is worried somehow Rachel will know if he’s lying.

“That doesn’t count,” Rachel says, “You don’t get talent by just being close to people that are talented. We won Nationals and there are some people we went to high school with that couldn’t sing their way out of a paper bag. Plus, I think you’re lying. Kurt said you’re our age, and I followed show choir blogs very, _very_ closely in high school, so you can’t lie to me. If you’d won I would have heard of you.”

He’s not annoyed with her or anything, just kind of dumbfounded.

“I went to Dalton Academy,” Blaine says blankly. “We won my junior year.”

She furrows her brow at him, almost studying him. After a minute her eyes go wide and she covers her mouth with her hands.

Before she says anything she turns around to Kurt, who’s leaning his back against the wall for support, looking like he’s about to pass out.

“Kurt!” She whines. “You didn’t – did you know about this?” Her tone makes it sound like it’s not a question at all. She points her hand toward Blaine, still turned toward Kurt and shouting. “This is Blaine of The Warblers, Kurt! And he’s been living in Finn’s frat house for over a year and you never told me? You never did anything? Did you not recognize him or something?”

“No,” Kurt says slowly, his eyes closed like he needs to focus on his words. “I didn’t know.”

“We have to sing together,” Rachel says, turning back to Blaine. “Do you have anything prepared?”

“Rachel,” Kurt interrupts, his voice not that loud but still sounding strained, like Kurt couldn’t make it any louder if he tried. “Blaine’s not feeling well. Neither am I. Can you go back to bed?”

“Oh,” Rachel says, looking crestfallen. She looks at Kurt, then back at Blaine. “ _Oh,_ ” she says again, with different inflection, smiling at Kurt. “Yes, I’ll go back to bed. I’ll – I’ll put my headphones in so I can listen to music while I fall asleep. That way I won’t be able to hear you guys or anything, if you –”

“Bed, Rachel,” Kurt says, as forcefully as he could make his voice sound.

Rachel actually stops. Blaine can’t believe that worked.

She turns around and walks back through her door, closing it behind her.

“Does she think we’re going to have sex?”

“Yeah,” Kurt says. He’s still leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. “I’m sorry about her.”

Blaine tries to shrug. “She seems nice?”

“She’s a nightmare,” Kurt says.

“Oh.”

“She’s also my best friend,” Kurt says. Finally, he pushes himself off the wall, opening his eyes. “Do you want to sleep on the couch?”

“Uh,” is all Blaine can think of to say. It’s very late and he walked all the way here from the frat house, but somehow it hadn’t dawned on him until now that it meant he’d be sleeping at Kurt’s.

Kurt doesn’t wait for a response, just turns away from Blaine and walks down the hallway toward where Blaine imagines the couch is.

Blaine follows him, slowly, and when he arrives he sees Kurt has arranged a throw blanket and a couple pillows on the couch. The couch is old and looks second-hand and uncomfortable, but Blaine’s slept in worse places. He expects Kurt to apologize for it somehow, to ask him if he’s okay with this, but he doesn’t.

Blaine doesn’t lay down or even sit, though; he just stands next to the couch and stares at it.

“What?” Kurt asks. Blaine suddenly remembers how sick Kurt had been and feels a little bad that he’s keeping Kurt from bed.

“I’m still kind of,” he tries, gesturing toward his legs and feet, the last bits of vomit dried to his skin and his feet dusty from the sidewalk.

“Do you feel up to showering?” Kurt asks. There’s still no inflection in his voice, just exhaustion.

“Not really,” Blaine admits.

“Then just go to sleep.”

Kurt doesn’t actually wait to see if Blaine does that or not, he just turns around back down the hallway toward his bedroom. Blaine hears Kurt’s bedroom door close and a _flump_ he imagines is Kurt falling onto his own bed.

Blaine pulls back the throw blanket and climbs under it, resting his head on the too-puffy throw pillows and staring up at the ceiling. Kurt is being a downright horrible host and Blaine’s glad for that. He didn’t really check in with Blaine about the couch, or ask him if the pillows or blankets were okay. He didn’t get Blaine a glass of water for the inevitable hangover he’ll have when he wakes up, he didn’t tell him where the bathroom was. He didn’t offer pajamas or sweatpants or anything to Blaine, even though Blaine’s clothes were dirty and too tight to be comfortable for sleeping and he and Kurt are about the same size anyway.

It’s weirdly comforting. He knows Kurt’s still doing him a huge favour by letting him crash here, especially after how much of a dick Blaine has been to him. Anything more than this would have just been too much, and Blaine would have felt even more guilty. He doubts Kurt is doing it intentionally – he’s just too drunk and sick and probably exhausted.

Blaine is, too. It’s so weird to fall asleep somewhere this quiet. He rolls over, curling into the couch, and closes his eyes.

* * *

 Blaine wakes up earlier than he’d like to. His head isn’t pounding, but he still has that dazed, recovering-from-a-panic-attack feeling that makes his whole body feel weak and foreign. The apartment is silent.

He reaches into his pocket for his phone to check the time and sees that it’s dead. Great.

The couch ended up being more comfortable than he expected, but he knows that if he was in a real bed he would have been able to sleep for a few more hours. His back and neck hurt from the weird angle of the pillows, and he sits up just to be able to feel his body in a different position.

The apartment is much clearer in the daytime.

It still seems almost strangely _normal_ , but there are a few tells that the apartment couldn’t belong to anybody but Kurt and what he knows of Rachel Berry. Just little things, like the books and CDs and DVDs they have scattered around. There are posters on the wall, but most of them are from musicals. It’s not as nice or as clean as Blaine would have imagined Kurt’s apartment to be, but he likes it. It makes him feel a lot less guilty about dirtying up his couch.

The apartment is weirdly comfortable.

Blaine stands up and makes his way to where he imagines the kitchen must be. He opens up all the cupboards before finding one with glasses and taking one down off the shelf, filling it with water from the tap. He leans against the counter and drinks the entire glass, then refills it and drinks that too. He’s not hungover yet, but that might change, especially if he’s dehydrated.

With his phone dead, Kurt still asleep and not yet feeling like he could go back home, Blaine figures he might as well try to shower. He walks down the hallway with the doors to Kurt and Rachel’s bedrooms and sees two doors at the end of the hall. The first one he tries is a linen closet, and Blaine grabs the least-nice towel he can find. It’s almost an instinct. He doesn’t know if Kurt and Rachel are the kind of people to have _nice_ towels that you’re not allowed to use, but after growing up the way he did, he knows it’s better not to take the chance.

The other door leads to the bathroom. He gets undressed, turns on the shower – it takes a while to figure out how the taps work, and then to find a temperature that wasn’t either freezing or scalding – and steps into it.

He runs his hands through his hair, trying his best to ease some of the tangles. It’s no use. He rinses himself off and just lets the water run over him, shedding him of all the reminders of last night.

Kurt probably wouldn’t mind if he used some of his soap and shampoo, but looking down at the assortment of bottles around the edge of the tub, he has no ideas which ones are Kurt’s. There’s about 20 different bottles and Blaine is confused and overwhelmed. He’s been relying on 2-in-1 shampoo and body wash ever since he left home, and it hasn’t let him down yet.

He eventually just ends up smelling the four or five different shampoos he sees, and picks the one with the least offensive smell.

Blaine smiles, despite himself. Of _course_ Kurt would make something as simple as washing your hair so needlessly fucking complicated. It’s cute.

After rinsing his hair, he does the same thing with the body wash – smelling a bunch of different ones before picking one. This one’s a little bit easier.

By the time he steps out of the shower, he feels better – back to himself. He wishes he had something else besides his dirty clothes from the night before to put back on, but hey, at least he was clean.

He doesn’t really know what to do with his towel, so he lays it over the edge of the tub and reminds himself to tell Kurt and thank him for the shower.

When he leaves the bathroom, he can hear someone in the kitchen. He walks down the hallway and sees Kurt standing at the stove, frying a couple of eggs.

He turns toward Blaine, and he’s not smiling, but he’s not quite frowning either. Mostly he still just looks tired.

“I thought we could both use something to eat,” he says.

Blaine smiles, and it’s definitely the thought of the food that’s making him smile.

Right?

* * *

 “What did you mean by _again_?” Blaine asks, using the side of his fork to cut off a piece of egg.

“Huh?”

Blaine squeezes his eyes shut for a second, remembering that Kurt’s words probably haven’t been playing over in his own head for a full week, that he hasn’t been obsessing over them like Blaine has. He drops his fork back down to the table.

“At that party a few weeks ago, when you,” he tries. What can he say? _When you confronted me for being such a dick to you? When you had the audacity to be yourself and it pissed me off?_

Kurt’s just raising his eyebrows at him.

“You kept saying ‘I can’t do this again.’ And Finn yelled at me, before that, said you’d been through this before.” He winces a little at the word _this_ , thinking about how awful he’s been.

Kurt sets his fork down too, and takes a long drink of water before responding. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess I kind of owe you after you helped me last night, right?”

Blaine just looks at him. Of course he doesn’t owe him anything. Kurt had helped Blaine a lot more than Blaine had helped Kurt. And that’s without even considering how nice Kurt continued to be to Blaine, even after all he’d done.

He doesn’t need this on his conscience too.

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he says, and he’s almost a little surprised at himself. They absolutely do need to talk about it. It’s been driving Blaine crazy.

“No, no, we should,” Kurt says. He pauses. “Are you done?”

“Done?” Blaine asks. With what? With being a dick? He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know anything, doesn’t know how he feels about Kurt, or –

“With your eggs,” Kurt clarifies.

“Oh. Yeah, I’m done.”

Kurt reaches forward for his plate, but Blaine grabs it as he stands up. “I’ll help,” he says, and he picks up Kurt’s plate too. He walks over to the garbage can at the end of the kitchen, steps on the pedal and uses his fork to scrape the last bits of food from their plates. Kurt is filling the sink with soap and water, and Blaine passes him the plates. He goes back to the table, clearing everything else, while Kurt does the dishes.

When they’re done, Kurt motions him back through the kitchen and into the living room. Blaine sits nervously on the couch while Kurt relaxes into an armchair off to the side.

Kurt takes a deep breath before he starts. “I guess it started my junior year of high school,” he says.

Blaine listens. For once, he just listens.

Kurt tells him about the bully, whom he switches between calling “David” and “Karofsky” depending on how much of an ass the guy is being at the particular point in the story. He tells Blaine about how Karofsky had pushed him, intimidated him, and then once Kurt confronted him, Karofsky kissed him. He told Blaine about the death threats, about the total inaction on behalf of the school administration, and about dropping out of school.

He missed almost his entire junior year and had to repeat it the following year. All of his friends started the year off talking about graduation and college, and he was stuck there pretending everything was okay.

Karofsky had changed schools that year, apparently out of some kind of guilt over what he did to Kurt. They had talked a few times, and Kurt had forgiven him for the most part, and then Karofsky confessed his feelings for Kurt on Valentine’s Day. Kurt turned him down and all of it was seen by one of the guys at Karofsky’s new school.

Kurt pauses at this point, his breath a little shaky. His words from then on are slow and deliberate, like he’s carefully choosing each word before he says it.

“I didn’t like him,” Kurt says. “I had forgiven him, but – I couldn’t just get over what had happened. Plus he’s just not really… I don’t know. But he kept calling me, he’d text me and I’d ignore him. That whole week after what happened at the restaurant, he must have called me fifty times, I didn’t pick up even once. I didn’t know what was going on at his school. I didn’t care. I knew that guy from the team had seen us together and had figured everything out, figured out that David was gay, but I just couldn’t talk to him.”

Kurt looks so completely wracked with guilt that Blaine has to actually fight the urge to lean forward on the couch and place his hand on Kurt’s knee to reassure him. By the time Kurt finishes telling him about the hateful things Karofsky’s classmates had said to him, about Karofsky’s dad finding him half-dead on his bedroom floor, about visiting Karofsky in the hospital, he’s visibly shaking.

When he’s done, Blaine gives him a few moments, before saying quietly, “You can’t blame yourself for that, Kurt.”

“Can’t I? He was alone and confused, and he was putting all this pressure on himself to be that guy, you know, the tough football player. I was the only other gay guy he knew. Well, outside of some asshole he met at a bar that told him to lose a hundred pounds and ‘stay in the closet.’”

“That – kind of sounds like someone I know,” Blaine says, shaking his head at the unpleasant memory, “Sorry, that doesn't matter. But Kurt, you’re not responsible for his actions. You didn’t do anything to him. After what he did to you, the fact you were even willing to be friends with him is just…”

He trails off, unsure of exactly what he’s trying to say.

“Just what?” Kurt prompts, “Pathetic? Sad?”

“Saintly,” Blaine says eventually. He wishes he could have picked a word that didn’t sound so dramatic. “Not everyone is that kind or patient. Almost nobody is. What happened to him was horrible, but what he did to you was horrible too. You would have been perfectly within your rights to never talk to him, but you did. I think that shows a lot of…” He falters and sighs, knowing that here, too, he can’t find a word that doesn’t sound stupidly melodramatic. “Courage.”

Kurt just closes his eyes and leans back in the armchair until he’s looking at the ceiling.

Blaine tries to process everything Kurt’s told him when something suddenly dawns on him.

“Is that why you’re being so nice to me?”

Kurt leans forward, looking at Blaine. “What?”

“You weren’t mad at me, you didn’t hate me, even after everything that I said to you.  You came over the day after and you – you offered to talk to me about it. I basically told you to fuck off and you still left me your number in case I needed it. You’re trying to make up for what happened with Karofsky.”

“Nobody else deserves to go through that,” Kurt says. “And I knew – well I suspected then, with how you reacted, but I _know_ now – you get panic attacks, and when people live with anxiety like that on top of this too…”

God, he fucking hates himself.

“It's more than just Karofsky,” Kurt continues, “I think if I had someone there for _me_ when Karofsky was doing that, it would have been easier. I mean, Rachel and Finn and everyone else was there, but it's different, you know? They tried, but I still went through it alone. Maybe if I hadn't, I wouldn't have had to drop out, I wouldn't be starting college a year late, I wouldn't be at a shitty state school. Karofsky would have been better off with a peer looking out for him. I would have been better off with a peer looking out for _me._ ”

“You can’t do this to yourself, Kurt,” Blaine says. “It wasn’t your job to save Karofsky. It isn’t your job to save me.”

“What did you want me to do?” Kurt asks, a little impatiently. “Leave that party and text Finn about what had happened, admit to him that everything I went through was happening again? Let you try to handle this on your own by drinking yourself half to death and working yourself up into panic attacks? Would you have rather I just left you there last night, crying and shaking and hyperventilating on the deck, while I just went home?”

Blaine figures it’s a rhetorical question, but Kurt’s looking at him as though he really is demanding an answer. “No,” he admits.

“Exactly.”

“That doesn’t mean I deserved it,” Blaine says.

“Don’t you get it?” Kurt snaps. “What do you think would have been harder for me – answering even _one_ of Karofsky’s phone calls, or having my principal call me out of class to sit me down in his office and explain to me that Karofsky was laying half-dead in some hospital bed? And what about you? If something happened and I hadn’t done anything, I’d be wracked with guilt. And I’d just have to be there for Finn, comforting him through it, completely unable to admit to him that it was my fault.”

Blaine just stares. “I’m not going to hurt myself.”

“Karofsky’s a really tough guy,” Kurt says, ignoring what Blaine had said. “He’s resilient. After it happened, my glee club coach sat us down and talked to us about suicide. He said everyone, _everyone_ , has one thing inside of them that could lead them to that point. Regardless of who you are, there’s a piece of you, somewhere, and if it’s poked just right… How am I supposed to know what that thing is for you? How can I assume that our confrontation wasn’t that thing?”

Blaine just hangs his head. There’s so much he wants to say to Kurt – wants to tell him over and over again that nothing that happened was his fault, wants to apologize, wants to promise to do better. He sits there for a long time, letting the conversation hang in the air, trying to pick his words.

_I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry for everything that I did._

_You deserve better, Kurt. You don’t deserve what either of us did to you._

_I’m sorry I couldn’t have been there for you when all of this was happening._

_You inspire me, Kurt._

_Do you think we could have coffee together?_

“I should go,” he says instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rachel Berry is a pleasure to write, and so was this chapter.
> 
> Please, please let me know what you think of everything so far. Nothing in the entire world is as encouraging for a writer as comments on their work so if you're enjoying this, please let me know!


	4. Chapter 4

Blaine leaves Kurt’s apartment feeling winded, overwhelmed and completely dazed. He had walked out without thinking, without thanking Kurt for letting him crash or making him breakfast or sharing that story with him.

He’s almost all of the way home before he realizes that his shoes are completely clean – Kurt must have washed them while Blaine was in the shower.

He wants to shake his head, shake it hard enough that all those thoughts fall out and he forgets everything Kurt told him.

He wants to stop thinking about Kurt.

* * *

Blaine hopes that when he gets home, he can quietly slip upstairs to his bedroom before anybody sees him, hopes he can hide away like he had a few weekends ago and just try to watch TV until his brain stops spinning, but he’s barely in the door when Sam accosts him.

“Dude!” He yells, way too loudly for Blaine to deal with right now, as Blaine closes the door behind him. “I’ve been looking for you, I –” He pauses, taking a look at Blaine. “Wow. Rough night?”

Blaine makes a pained smile. “Little bit.”

“You go home with someone?”

“Well –”

“Hey, that girl you were with – Tina? – she left with her friend, without you!” Sam’s eyes are open wide, the way he always looks when he thinks he’s uncovered some kind of conspiracy. “I saw her. Her friend was really hot before she started crying so I was kind of watching her and then I noticed that girl you were with leave with her. Without you.”

“Yeah, she told me she was going to go take care of her.” Blaine closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to deal with this right now.

“So if you didn’t go home with her,” Sam starts, his voice trailing off.

Oh, right.

He can’t admit to going home with Kurt – not that he’d _gone home with Kurt_ but he’d gone to Kurt’s apartment, slept on his couch, used his shower, Kurt had even made him breakfast –

But he can’t lie either, say he went home with someone else, because even at his worst, Blaine knows it’s trashy to bring a girl to a party and leave with someone else.

Blaine can feel his jaw try to work, opening and closing, trying desperately to find words while Sam just stares at him, looking scandalized.

He’s saved – is saved the right word? – when Finn walks through the living room and sees the two of them still standing at the door.

“Blaine!” Finn nearly shouts, and fuck, he doesn’t look happy. Not that he’d have any reason to look happy – Blaine’s been avoiding him for weeks.

“What, Finn?” Blaine says, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice.

“What the fuck did you do to Kurt last night?”

He can’t look at Finn, so he looks at Sam instead, and this question is even worse than Sam’s was. Sam’s eyes went, if possible, even wider, and he’s turning his head wildly between Finn and Blaine.

“I don’t –” Blaine tries. He still can’t find any words. “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean?” Finn repeats, his voice raised and fuck Blaine hates it when Finn’s angry. “I’m trying to have some fun last night and some chick comes up to me, tells me she saw someone grab Kurt’s arm really rough and pull him onto the deck. She knows Kurt and knows he’s my brother and said you looked really violent, like you were shaking or something! And I tried texting him this morning and he hasn’t texted me back!”

“I didn’t do anything to Kurt,” Blaine tries.

“Bullshit!” Finn nearly yells, and Blaine looks to Sam who’s rooted to the spot, eyeing Finn warily, like he might need to jump in between the two of them at some point. “What were you doing then?”

“I –” Blaine keeps looking around, from Finn to Sam and then back again, as though one of their faces might have an answer for Finn’s question – one that won’t make Finn kick his ass, but won’t make him reveal too much, either.

He doesn’t find anything.

He takes a deep breath.

“Can we sit down? I’ll – I’ll tell you what happened.”

* * *

 There isn’t really any room in the house where they don’t have a risk of being walked in on or overheard, but they’ll probably have the most luck in Blaine’s bedroom, so that’s where he leads Finn.

Sam comes with them, and Blaine is grateful for that – this conversation probably needs a referee.

Once they’re all settled – Blaine and Sam sitting on Blaine’s bed and Finn sitting backwards on Blaine’s chair, still looking _furious –_ Blaine starts talking.

And he does tell them the truth.

Most of it.

He says how he ran into Kurt, how Kurt had been drinking more than Blaine had ever seen him drink. About someone bumping into Kurt and Kurt falling onto Blaine and then throwing up and then Blaine helping to get Kurt to fresh air and cleaning him up.

Finn still doesn’t look satisfied. “That chick said you were shaking, like you were going to hit him or something!”

Blaine isn’t ready to talk about his panic attacks. “Look,” he tries, “I was drunk and Kurt just threw up on me. I wasn’t _angry_ , I was just – upset. I don’t know if you’ve ever been thrown up on but it isn’t fun.”

This seems to placate Finn, at least for a moment.

It’s Sam who speaks up next.

“So where did you go?”

Blaine lets out a breath before continuing. He’s staring down at his hands, not wanting to look at either of them. “Back to Kurt’s,” he admits. “He was drunk and looked like he could use some help getting home so I – I offered to walk him. I wanted to make sure he got home safe. But it was late and he asked if I wanted to – to crash on his couch, and I was drunk too and exhausted, so I did.” Not entirely true, of course, it had been Kurt who offered to let Blaine come over to avoid the party, but it was close enough.

Nobody says anything, and so Blaine finally looks up. Finn is just staring at the ground.

“Thanks,” he says in a voice smaller than Blaine has ever heard from Finn.

“It really isn’t a big deal –”

“Just let me talk, okay Blaine?” Finn nearly snaps. “I know he’s my age but I still feel like he’s just my kid brother, and after all the stuff he went through in high school – and the fact he can’t really drink _at all_ , like, he threw up on our high school guidance counselor once – I kind of freaked out when I heard you were with him last night. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”

“I was kind of a dick to him before,” Blaine admits. “You were right to look out for him. I don’t really blame you, especially, like you said, after everything that happened with Karofsky.”

Blaine doesn’t realize he’s said it until he looks at Finn to see Finn suddenly staring at him, his mouth gaping.

“How do you know about that?”

Fuck.

_I had a heart-to-heart with your brother about closeted bullies because that’s what I am to him._

“We uh, talked a little bit this morning.”

“How did Karofsky even come up? He doesn’t talk about that stuff, dude –”

“It just did, okay?” Blaine says impatiently. “It doesn’t matter. What we talked about and why isn’t any of your – I mean – just shut up, okay?”

Finn just sighs and stands up from where he was seated at the desk chair. “Fine,” he says, sounding more defeated than terse. “I’m gonna go. Thanks for looking out for him, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

Finn leaves, and Blaine lets himself fall back into his bed until he’s staring at the ceiling.

A moment passes  before Sam says anything.

“Blaine?”

Sam’s voice is so quiet and unsure that Blaine sits back up again, and Sam is sitting with his back pressed against where Blaine’s bed is pushed against the wall, staring straight at the other end of the room instead of at Blaine.

“Sam?” Blaine tries nervously.

“I didn’t want to say anything in front of Finn,” he says, and his voice is low and quiet, “but I know. I heard you and Kurt arguing last night and Finn had told me about what Kurt went through in high school and I was – I was worried, dude, I didn’t want you to do something stupid so I – I kinda listened to you guys talk, okay?”

“What are you talking about, Sam?”

“Kurt was talking about you leading on that girl, and I didn’t really get it and then Mike dragged me away to play beer pong and I totally had no idea what he was talking about and it bugged me all night. Like why would you lead some girl on? Why would Kurt think that’s what you’re doing? And then you left without Tina and I thought that was weird, like maybe you were cheating on her, but then – when you mentioned that guy, that Karofsky guy,” Sam looks like he’s trying desperately to find words, still not looking at Blaine. “I figured it out okay?”

“Figured _what_ out?”

Sam finally turns to look at Blaine. “That you’re,” Sam tries, and his voice has dropped down to a whisper. “Are you uh – are you gay?”

Blaine feels his entire body sink, like everything has fallen around him, but it goes away after a few seconds. It’s like his body’s still too tired from his panic attack last night to get properly worked up again.

 _Courage,_ Kurt had said.

And if Kurt could go through everything he went through – and Sam was his friend and sure they weren’t close but he was closer with Sam than he was with any of other guys –

“Yeah,” he blurts out, worried that if he waits a second longer he’d lose his nerve.

“Oh. Wow,” Sam says, and he isn’t looking at Blaine again.

“I’m sorry,” Blaine says, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“I mean, before last night I never would have – wow. Does anybody else know?”

“Just Kurt,” Blaine says. “He figured it out pretty quickly. I think I reminded him so much of Karofsky that he just – I don’t know.”

“Is that why you went over there? Are you and Kurt, like –”

Blaine cuts him off before Sam can finish saying whatever the hell he was going to say, because Blaine’s sure it can’t be anything good. “No, no – no, I wasn’t lying about that – Kurt was sick and I…” He sighs.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

“I get panic attacks sometimes,” he admits, and it seems like nothing after the whole gay thing, “and I had one last night. Kurt had confronted me and then threw up and before I knew what I was doing I was dragging him out of that party to get some fresh air and I kind of freaked out. I didn’t want to be around all those people anymore and Kurt – Kurt saw that I was shaking and crying and even though he was sick he offered to let me stay at his apartment.”

“Dude,” Sam says, and his tone is admonishing. “I told you you were depressed! I knew something was going on with you, I just didn’t know all of it I guess but –”

“I’m not depressed,” Blaine says. “It’s not that, it’s just – I panic sometimes. Most of the time I’m okay, but… Yeah. It’s been bad lately, ever since this whole thing with Kurt started.”

“Because he knew?”

“Yeah,” Blaine says. “I’d gone my entire freshman year without anybody finding out and then Finn brings Kurt here and – and everything fell apart.”

“That’s a little harsh,” Sam says. “I mean it’s just me and Kurt that know, and it’s not a big deal, you know? Like, you see how everyone treats Kurt, and it’s not just because he’s Finn’s brother – I really don’t think anyone would care, I don’t care, you’re still my bro, bro –”

“It’s not just that,” Blaine says. Now that he’s started opening up it’s like he can’t stop. “What the hell am I going to do about Tina? I really, really like her. Not, like – I mean, obviously – but she’s an awesome friend and just really cool and either I keep lying to her, or I tell her and she hates me forever. And Kurt’s the only other person who knows and the only gay guy I ever really talk to anymore and he hates me already, and he’s been through so much shit and I’m just part of that, just another in a long string of assholes that –”

“Hey, hey,” Sam interrupts, and he puts his hand on Blaine’s shoulder.

He’s touching him.

Blaine half expects Sam to realize the guy he’s touching is gay and jerk his hand away, but he doesn’t.

“You’re not that Karofsky dude,” Sam says. “Obviously I don’t know everything that went down with either of you but – you’re a good guy, and everyone here agrees, you know? That’s why everyone kind of freaked out when you were being a dick to Kurt, you’re normally so nice. Like, _so_ nice. And like, if he hated you, would he even have told you about all that?”

Blaine lets out a long sigh. He can’t tell if Sam has a point or if he’s just too tired to argue.

“I just really need to think about some stuff,” Blaine says. “I haven’t really had time to process or anything and I think I just need to be alone and try to – to figure it out.”

“Yeah.” Sam gets up slowly from the bed, but he looks sad, like he’s reluctant to leave. “Hey, if you ever need to talk to anyone about it, I’m here, okay? I promise not to get weirded out if you need to talk about kissing dudes or whatever? If you’re even ready for that yet, I don’t know, but if it’s that or if it’s just about Kurt or Tina – whatever it is, dude, I want to listen.”

Blaine nods. “Thanks, Sam.”

Sam just kinda shrugs. “It’s what bros do,” he says, managing a goofy smile.

Blaine even manages to smile back, though it’s small and quick.

“Just – Sam – don’t tell anybody about this, okay? I’m not ready yet.”

Sam just nods, then punches Blaine lightly on the shoulder. “‘Course. You do you, dude.”

* * *

  _To: Kurt  
_ _hey, it’s blaine. can you text finn back? he’s freaking out that you won’t respond. i told him what happened last night, and then sam asked me if i was gay after finn left and i told him i was._

He writes the text and stares at the little arrow he needs to tap to send it, reading it over and over and over so many times that his screen shuts off.

He clicks the phone back on and hits the send button before he can think better of it, then reads the text over fifteen more times.

The phone’s screen shuts off again and Blaine lets out a breath, closing his eyes. The hard part’s over.

His eyes shoot open again, realizing he hadn’t actually double-checked to make sure that he sent the text to the right person. He unlocks his phone and taps the contact file he’d just made for Kurt, comparing the number he’d typed in with the one scribbled on a piece of paper that Kurt had left behind weeks ago.

 _In case you ever need anyone to talk to,_ Kurt had said.

He guesses he kind of needs someone now.

He checks the number on his phone a few more times, then reads the text over again for good measure. Then he stares back up at the ceiling, his phone resting on his chest, simultaneously praying that Kurt responds soon so his stomach can calm down and that somehow, somehow Kurt never got the text and will never respond and he’ll never have to deal with it.

Blaine tries to plan out how the conversation will go in his head, trying to decide if it was a good idea to type in all lower-case or if he should have let autocorrect do its thing. He nearly jumps when he feels the phone vibrate against his chest, and he scrambles into a sitting position, grabbing his phone.

Kurt’s calling him.

He just stares at it for a second as though it’s a bomb about to go off before sliding a finger across the screen to accept the call.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me. Kurt.”

“Yeah. Hey,” Blaine tries.

“I texted Finn back before I called you,” Kurt says slowly, like he’s trying just as hard as Blaine is to pick his words carefully. “I didn’t text him back earlier because I didn’t know how much he knew and didn’t want to say anything before you told me it was okay.”

“Thanks for that,” Blaine says, and he feels a pang of guilt.

“Yeah,” Kurt says, a little dismissively. “What happened earlier? You kind of ran out on me.”

Blaine leans back against the wall, trying to relax. “I didn’t know what to say about everything that happened between you and Karofsky. I feel like I had all these things I wanted to say and just couldn’t say any of them.”

“Like what?”

“Like…” Blaine tries to think. “Like how I was doing the exact same thing to you, that you don’t deserve what either of us did.”

He hears Kurt let out a breath that might have been a small laugh. “I don’t think it’s fair for me to have to sit here and assuage your guilt, so I’m not going to do that,” Kurt says firmly, “but you’re not really anything like Karofsky, other than being a closet-gay bully. But he was much worse to me than you were.” Kurt pauses for a second. “And I know I didn’t deserve that.”

“Good,” Blaine says, then because he can’t think of anything else to say, he just repeats, “good.”

Kurt’s quiet for a moment before he says anything. “You told Sam?”

“Well not exactly,” Blaine says, “but he figured it out and I didn’t deny it. It’s uh… It’s been a long time since I’ve done that. You know? Talked to anyone who thought I was gay. Even my parents are convinced it was just a phase I went through because I went to an all-boys private school.”

“How long?” Kurt asks. His voice is soft and gentle and Blaine’s stomach settles down. He feels weirdly safe, like he did talking to Sam.

“Since high school,” Blaine admits. “Look, I really – I’m not ready to talk about everything that happened.”

“What happened in high school?”

“Yeah. And earlier than that too,” Blaine says. “But I think – I should tell you, right?”

“I can’t make that decision for you,” Kurt admonishes.

“Yeah, I guess. I just don’t really know what I’m supposed to do in this situation, you know?” He sighs. “I don’t know what to do at all or where to go from here, how I’m supposed to deal with Sam knowing. I’ve just been pretending I wasn’t for so long.”

“You need to make things right with Tina,” Kurt says. “That should be your starting place. You’re being awful to her, Blaine.”

His voice isn’t soft and light anymore, and Kurt being _disappointed_ in him hurts in a way Blaine can’t even really describe.

“I know, I know –”

“No, you don’t,” Kurt interrupts, a little coldly. “She’s a person, not just an object for you and your _gayngst_. And she’s in love with you. The longer you let her think she has a chance with you, the worse it’s going to be for her.”

He’s right, of course, but Blaine just finds himself getting frustrated with the lecture. “Fuck, why does it matter to you anyway? I know I’m being a dick, but I’m going to – I’ll deal with it.”

“Don’t snap at me,” Kurt snaps back through the phone, “You just admitted you have no idea what you’re doing and I’m telling you what you need to do. Don’t bite my head off. I’m not the one screwing everything up.”

Blaine doesn’t need to hear it, he just takes the phone away from his ear and taps the “End Call” button.

Kurt’s right.

Blaine is royally fucking all of this up.

* * *

 Blaine, Sam, and some of the other guys are playing video games later when he feels his phone vibrate. The vibration startles him and he fumbles his controller and it falls to the ground as he reaches into the pocket of his shorts for his phone.

“Come on Blaine, get your shit together,” Puck yells at him, pausing the game.

“We’re losing anyway,” Blaine says, not even bothering to grab the controller off the floor.

He figures the text is going to be Kurt, yelling at him some more, but when he draws the pattern to unlock his phone, he sees it isn’t Kurt at all.

 _From: Tina  
_ _Hey!!! Sorry I had to rush out last night, I really didn’t want to go. I had a really great time._

Blaine just stares at the text.

Kurt’s right, he needs to deal with this. Even if it means Tina never talks to him again, he needs to start getting some of the poison out of his life, and part of that is being honest with Tina.

 _To: Tina  
_ _hey, i had fun too! can we get together monday morning? what time do you have class?_

That should be okay. He reads it over a few times before sending it, hoping it sounds casual enough that she doesn’t freak out but non-committal enough that she doesn’t get even more invested in the idea of them together.

 _From: Tina  
_ _Not until 11, can we meet at 10? It’s supposed to be nice out, can we meet at the picnic tables by the arts buildings? I want to enjoy the nice weather before it leaves._

 _To: Tina  
_ _yeah. see you then._

* * *

 That night Blaine just stares at the ceiling. Tina’s never going to talk to him again, he’s sure of it, and Kurt’s pissed at him too and he shouldn’t have snapped at him like that. But this is what he needs to do – this is his narrative, his story, this is him dealing with all the bullshit and taking responsibility. He knows it’s not going to be easy.

But Tina’s nice, she’s kind and understanding and maybe she’ll be mad for a while but she’ll forgive him. Same with Kurt – he’s forgiven him for everything so far, right?

Objectively he knows things will be okay, eventually, but things are going to really, really suck for a while.


End file.
